


Boxed Up

by retrojupiter



Series: Interludes [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Death Watch (Star Wars), Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, look i felt bad when i wrote this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27440209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/retrojupiter/pseuds/retrojupiter
Summary: While searching for something for the kid to play with, Din comes across some buried memories too.
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin
Series: Interludes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2007094
Comments: 27
Kudos: 193





	Boxed Up

**Author's Note:**

> Credit to captainleo in Inevitable Truths for the concept of children giving him small gifts :)

Din was officially done. The kid had killed him. 

The kid had choked that morning on the ball today. And Din had had a spike of anxiety so strong in his chest that he thought he was finally keeling over from stress, just to find that no, that was just the joys of parenting. Even though the kid was fine, hadn’t even choked for more than ten seconds, the knot of tension telling Din to put the green chaos machine into a _birikad_ until he actually did die from stress hadn’t loosed at all. 

The kid had been surviving on just that silver ball, and some spanners for the entirety of their time together so far, and seemed happy, but it didn’t sit right with Din that he didn’t have anything actually for his age...maybe not age, but maturity. Being on the run, shopping for toys of all things would be both a waste of credits, and a stupid risk to take for the both of them, but if Gideon was dead, then the kid deserved to be spoiled a bit now. Din had to make up for lost time. 

And if it stopped him from hearing that horrible gagging noise again, he’d do anything. 

Unknown to anyone else, Din had installed some secret compartments into his ship over the years, both to keep extra weapons, and some personal possessions. Had to keep them locked away; couldn’t let anyone know the big bad Mandalorian bounty hunter kept trinkets given to him by children, he’d always thought. The compartments were encrypted, well enough that if the ship ever got taken - or stripped by fucking Jawas - they’d be safe. So, everything in there was free of the pervasive layer of oil and grime that seemed to coat his ship no matter how hard he tried to keep it clean, as well as no-one knowing about it. 

(Cleaning was a recent development. He had caught some distinctly unimpressed looks from Kuill as they went to Nevarro. Taking a better look at the walls, he’d agreed that no, it probably wasn’t safe for the child.) 

Slipping off the helmet, Din opened up the hatch protecting the crates and dragged them out into the hull. Surely, he had something the kid could chew on in here - 

Unhelpfully, the first crate he opened was full to the brim of weapons. Mandalorians traditionally gave weapons as presents, and he was no different – the box had things such as a beautifully balanced knife that his buir had given him when he left for his first hunt. And (how had he forgotten about this?) a small wrist-mounted firearm to fit on a vambrace that Paz had given him on the day they swore the Creed. 

And- 

The gun that his buir had pressed into his hands as he lay dying in the Purge, telling him to go, to run, to leave him- 

Din had never used that gun apart from that day. 

Shoving the crate closed, he pushed it away roughly. No point in dwelling. 

The next crate had some stuff from the covert – clothes he didn’t need to wear (call it laziness, but it was just fine to only wear one outfit), and tokens from the foundlings. They would come up to him when he came back from a hunt, and demand he play _meshgeroya_ or _get’shuk_ with them, or just ask for a story until he wore down and told them about the world beyond Nevarro. Beyond the dark, quiet tunnels. 

Paz’ ad was the worst for bullying Din into a story, big blue eyes just like his buir, and Din could never say no. So, the softness Cara teased him for may have started before the kid. 

Often, as thanks, or just to show what they had been doing, the children would give him small gifts. Shiny things, like a colourful rock (prized, from the surface), or drawings of battles. Mandalorian against mythosaur, drawn crudely in whatever colour crayon the Tribe could afford that month (most often brown). All the drawings were in a small folder to the side of the crate, to keep them straight and fresh. 

His favourite had been given to him by a boy named Ath, who was about seven when Din had last seen him. He’d only arrived at the covert a few months earlier, scared and traumatized. He seemed to gravitate towards Din, his quietness comforting in the sea of loud, brash Mando’ade. 

One day, he had shyly presented a small piece of paper to Din, running away before Din had a chance to look at it, to thank him. The picture was of Din (rust red armour and Amban rifle included), chasing after some bounty – that looked suspiciously like the slavers Ath had been rescued from. The lines were clean, and the proportions surprisingly accurate for the boy’s age. Din loved it. He had slipped a thank you note attached to a wrapped slice of uj’alayi cake to Ath’s bed and left it at that – the boy knew what it was for, and Din had never been good with words anyway. He’d put the drawing in the Crest’s compartments, but he took it out more often than the others, thinking of the boy he’d left at the covert. 

Like him, no-one had immediately stepped up to adopt Ath. He had started to plan to, to finally settle down, before... 

Before all this. 

(Did Ath even survive? Had Din killed his _get-ad_?) 

Slipping the drawing back into its folder, Din tried to ignore his burning eyes. Closer to the top, he found some of the things Omera and Winta had gifted him at Sorgan – a krill shell necklace (really, Winta?), and a polished bit of metal from the walker they’d brought down. 

Still, nothing helpful for the kid. The metal was definitely another choking hazard. 

Third crate. There were only two left now. This one was filled with emergency provisions, in case of a crash landing. It had warm coats, heat blankets, water, rations, and credits. Everything functional, nothing helpful. 

Discarding that crate, he went to fetch the last one, leaning over to pull it from the hatch. 

Once he had it in front of him, he typed in the sequence to open it up. None of the other’s had this strong of a lock, but then again, none of the others were quite as precious. 

Foundlings were encouraged to fully move on from their birth homes, to fully assimilate to Mandalorian culture, but Din never really had. It had all seemed so overwhelming, clinging to his finder that day – so bright, and loud, and so alien to what he had known in his life up to that point, and all he had wanted to do was hide. 

It had taken months for him to open up at all, to start playing with the others. At least a week before he even let the Mandalorians wash his robes 

One day, his finder (not his buir, not yet), had pulled him out of lessons, with the excuse that Din had an appointment with the _baar’ur_. Buir had been a shitty liar, but they let him off for the day. Din was bundled quietly into the back of a small craft, squeezing into the tiny passenger seat beside his buir, and had sat, monumentally confused, as they launched into hyperspace. 

He remembered thinking they were finally done with him. That he didn’t have enough Mandokarla so he was going to be dumped on some backwater planet miles away from Corellia- 

And his buir had turned to him, and explained, that they were going to Aq Vetina. Back home. 

To leave him there? 

No, no. To remember. 

He hadn’t understood at the time, but it was forbidden to bring foundlings back to their original homes if they had been accepted to be Mando’ade - in the eyes of Kry’tsad, once a child started to adopt Mandalorian customs, they had _cin vhetin_. There was no past, only the Way. His finder, his buir, hadn’t agreed. 

They had gone back to his town, the older Mandalorian carefully shielding Din’s eyes from what he now realised were probably skeletons and dismembered droids. During the ride over, he had put his address into the coordinates of buir’s vambrace, and he had flown by jetpack, like that day, face buried into his buir’s cowl. 

Somehow, his house was intact. 

His buir had given him one bag, almost bigger than Din, and told him to fill it, with things he didn’t want to let go of. 

Din remembered sitting at the table in the kitchen. Knowing it was the last time he would ever be there. Realising, that nothing could ever go back to the way it had been. 

Nothing would be like before. 

_Cin vhetin_ _._

He was silent, even more so than usual, on the flight back. In the weeks after he returned to the clan, he started interacting with the other children with a sort of inevitable resignation. Lone wolf, his clan members had called him. None of them ever thought to think of whether he wished to be there at all. 

Combing through the box now, the memories and possessions his eight-year-old self had decided were important enough to keep were almost alien to him. An old blanket, one of his mother’s scarves, his father’s watch...things to say they were _real_. _They had lived_. 

There was something underneath...something glinting? 

Holos. Shit. He didn’t remember the last time he looked at these, much less taking them from the house. 

A whole album filled with photos of him as a child...of his parents. Fuck, he’d forgotten what they looked like. Dozens of photos of a messy haired baby, messy haired child, laughing, playing, being hugged. One of him baking, flour covering his hands. 

Din flinched as a tear hit the photos. He couldn’t bring himself to watch the videos. 

All the memories he had of that day were silent. He couldn’t remember what his mother’s last words to him sounded like. Those videos – he would know. Better to let it stay dead, to let himself detach from the memories. 

Putting the holos down, he reached further into the box pulling out - 

A small, stuffed bear. It had been a birthday present when he was a kid, he had slept with it every night- missed it when he got to the Mandalorians - 

( _There is no space in_ _Kry’stad for a laanduur_ _, they said_ ) 

It would be perfect for the kid. Chewable, no small parts, soft, cute. 

Din placed the bear behind him and locked up the crates again, putting them back into the compartment. He grabbed the helmet as he started walking away, the world going back to the familiar filter. 

_Cin vhetin_

The kid would love it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Had a lot of fun (and angst) writing this one.  
> Comments/feedback/random yelling always welcome :D
> 
> \- Esher (they/them)
> 
> Mando'a Translations:  
> \- Birikad: Baby carrying harness  
> \- Buir: Father  
> \- Meshgeroya, get'shuk: Mandalorian games  
> \- Ad: Child  
> \- Get-ad: Almost child  
> \- Baar'ur: Doctor  
> \- Mandokarla: Having the *right stuff*, showing guts and spirit  
> \- Kry'stad: Death Watch  
> \- Cin vhetin: Fresh start, clean slate - lit. white field, virgin snow  
> \- Laandur: Delicate, fragile (sometimes an insult - weak, pathetic)


End file.
